StarCraft II is shown here running on a '08 MacBook. The beta for Mac just aired for lucky beta testers. (Source: Giant Bomb)

Apple owners finally get a bit more gaming love

Apple's
Macs have traditionally packed powerful Intel CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs.
One would think that they would prove an ideal home for PC games; but
in reality they have only received a limited selection of
high-profile ports. That's mainly because most PC games rely on
Direct X, a proprietary Microsoft API. Macs use OpenGL instead,
necessitating a port. This is just one of multiple API-level
differences between Windows gaming and Mac gaming.

Valve
just announced this week that it would be releasing the betas to the
public on May
12.

Blizzard – makers of StarCraft, Diablo,
and Warcraft –
has a long relationship with Apple, but hasn't been tossing as many
titles their way of late. However, Blizzard is stepping up its
Mac efforts as well. Blizzard just released a beta version of
the upcoming StarCraft
II for
Mac.

Mac players can snag the test release for free
at Battle.net, but they must
already be in the beta test program to get it.

In
non-Mac StarCraft
II news,
the upcoming title has received a new
map editor patch, that allows users greater flexibility in
crafting custom levels and mods. A couple of users are already
showing off their handiwork, crafting a Diablo clone and
a Kart
racing game with it.

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Come on Pirks, you know Macs have rarely been supported for games. I can count on one hand the number of studios that developed for Mac and still have fingers left over. I don't even mean exclusively either.

OSX and it's roflcopter software support doesn't work on what, maybe 95% (low guess) percent of the hardware that is actually used and programmed for in the the world?

To answer your question, people use Windows over OSX because it runs their software, whatever it may be.

Don't go confusing the argument of which operating system is technically superior with the obvious conclusionary one of which one is economically simpler to use and develop for. Especially when your country mostly uses 10 year old systems and Win98-XP/unix within their infrastructures.

You know who still uses alot of 10 year old Macs in America? Oh! Our education system, that Apple was in bed with financially, that we still pay out of our asses for, maintaining the out-dated inneficiencies of and supplementing the correction of, with our personal income.

The only reason I can ever see someone buying a mac to play new, old, or any games at all on is because they have put their money before their logic.

I'm pretty sure with Blizzard (going on their past trends) that if you buy Starcraft II you will get BOTH Windows and Mac versions in the box - that was definitely the case with Warcraft III and World of Warcraft.

You don't specifically go out and buy a 'Mac version' or a 'Windows version' - in the case of World of Warcraft it was a hybrid-disc.